‘A natural doofus’, ‘a comedian’s comedian’: Dai Henwood, remembered

Friends are reeling after the passing of comedy veteran Dai Henwood. These are the moments they’ll treasure.

Paul Ego will remember their fortnightly golf games. The comedian would be be about to tee off when a voice would pipe up offering a bespoke and almost certainly fabricated proverb. “It would be about an old man with two horses,” says Ego. “It would go on forever, like, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’”

Still going after four holes, Ego finally realised why it was happening. “He’d do it just to throw you off your golf game.”

Josh Thomson will remember a man who saved up personalised stories and gags just for him. Then, when they were next together, he’d “come charging at you with your own private Dai show”, says the actor and comedian. “He could make me howl with laughter,” says Thomson. “So many of his lines and ridiculous phrases are deeply entrenched into my everyday psyche.”

Sharyn Casey will remember her time co-hosting Dancing With the Stars with him, and script meetings that always went over time. They’d sit there together, spray-tanned and bare-footed, wearing bath robes and eating stolen chocolate while suggesting wildly inappropriate lines that would never make the live broadcast. 

“The banter in those meetings [was] throw-your-head-back, full belly laughs,” says Casey. “We’d get a telling off for being distracted.”

Comedian Sam Smith’s favourite memory of him comes from last year. Via text, he’d congratulated his friend on being appointed an officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit. Then came the reply, a mock complaint: “My kids refuse to call me ‘officer’. And they missed all my contributions to Al Qaeda.” 

Tributes, accolades and memories have been flowing since Dai Henwood passed away after a six-year battle with bowel cancer. The Wellington-born, Auckland-based comedy veteran is survived by his wife Jo Kelly and their children, Charlie and Lucy. He was 48.

Henwood rose from New Zealand’s late 90s alt-comedy scene and hosting stints on the early 2000s music TV channel C4 to become a primetime TV veteran. A regular on the Friday night comedy show 7 Days, he was a go-to host for anyone wanting a friendly face armed with quick-witted one-liners. 

During the early stages of his career, many remember Henwood’s character-based comedy, with figures like the mulleted, singlet-wearing John the Bank Teller, the pill-popping DJ Yousef Brekinhiemer, and the over-the-top wrestler P-Funk Chainsaw, which won him the Billy T Award in 2002. 

Those characters all explored aspects of the New Zealand psyche, says Jon Bridges, who worked with Henwood on 7 Days and regular live tours. “When he’d put on a thick New Zealand accent he was just brilliant,” he says. “He was such a celebrator of New Zealand life.”

Richard Carrington, Henwood’s manager since 2001, says a career turning point came after a stint at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival in the mid-2000s. Flight of the Conchords were taking off, but Henwood’s character comedy was struggling to connect.

“When he came back, he transitioned out of doing characters and started performing as Dai Henwood,” says Carrington. A chance offer to be a team captain on the new weekly comedy show 7 Days came in 2009. With Jeremy Corbett hosting and Paul Ego as an opposing captain, it seemed like an unlikely pairing, remembers Ego. “It felt like two funny uncles and they couldn’t find a third uncle so they bought in the ADHD cousin,” he says. “This could have been a disaster, but it was the opposite … it felt right from the get-go.”

Henwood soon showed a knack for what seemed like abstract asides and off-topic gags, turning the show into a mainstay. Despite appearances, Corbett says there was “a lot of brains behind the maniac”. “He’s a hard worker, he’s a thinker, he would go off the rails and derail … but there was always method behind the madness. I loved it. I just wanted to know where it was going. I had complete trust in him … it was a privilege to watch.”

From there, opportunities kept coming, as host of Family Feud for two seasons between 2016-17, co-hosting Dancing With the Stars in 2018, and Lego Masters NZ in 2022. Henwood helped open doors and show comedy as a viable career path, many local comics say. “The comedy industry in New Zealand as we know it does not exist without Dai Henwood,” says Thomson.

Henwood announced his 2020 cancer diagnosis in 2023. A documentary, Live and Let Dai, came the following year, along with an autobiography, The Life of Dai. He cancelled tour dates in 2025 when his cancer returned. 

One of his last full-length interviews came around this time. TV presenter Sam Hayes says she reached out to Henwood, a friend from Three and Dancing With the Stars, to suggest an interview after seeing a social media post announcing his cancer had returned. To her surprise, he agreed. 

“He was so brilliantly honest and so beautifully himself,” says Hayes. “He was so gentle but forthright about what cancer had taken from him, but the person he had become because of it … It’s one of the most beautiful interviews I’ve done in my career.”

Henwood’s impact can be seen by the level of grief expressed by so many who crossed paths with him. In interviews with local comedians and industry representatives, many said they were still in shock. “I’ve cried and cried,” said one. “I’m still a bit of a mess,” said another. “It’s been pretty rough,” said a third. “I’m still so sad,” said a fourth. “There have been lots of tears today,” said a fifth.

But everyone –  everyone – wanted this piece to mention how Henwood behaved when the cameras were off, when he was backstage, behind the scenes. “He always chose kindness,” says Carrington. “He was always asking about other people,” says Smith. Thomson remembers “a Kiwi battler who loved to make people laugh, but he will always be so much more. A pioneer, a true icon, a great friend, and a family man.” Corbett repeats a quote he heard from someone else: “Dai would always leave you happier.”

Casey calls Henwood “funny, kind and good”. She remembers him supporting her many times while co-hosting Dancing With the Stars – even when she wasn’t there. “When Dai was in the room, he had your back. But more importantly, he had your back when you weren’t in the room.”

Smith remembers Henwood showing up for a full weekend of filming Family Feud suffering shingles. “No one knew. He was just his bubbly, nice, normal, happy self,” he says. During this time, Smith was diagnosed with MS. “I went blind and he would message me every day I was in hospital,” says Smith. “He got behind the Crusaders for a season just because he knew I liked them.” 

Smith remembers Henwood once sneaking an inside joke into a live taping of Dancing With the Stars that was so obscure no one watching at home would have got it – “but it made five of us on the crew piss ourselves laughing”. “I feel so lucky because I got to hang out with him while he was doing his favourite thing in the entire world. Every time I saw him, he was in his happy place.”

Hayes last saw Henwood in May, when he was hosting the Best Foods Comedy Gala. “My final memory of Dai will be of him onstage,” she says. “I was able to duck backstage afterwards, give him a big hug and tell him how amazing he was … I’m so grateful for that last memory, of him, on stage, being the brilliant stand-up comic that he was."